"I don't want to learn anything else, live anywhere else but in the middle west. It's my land. I love it. I want to serve it. But, oh, Sally, let's not torture ourselves any more. I know I mustn't marry you under this cloud, but let's be happy for a few minutes before we go back to the show train. No, don't, darling!" as she lifted her arms. "Just sit there on my coat and let me look at you. You're the most beautiful thing in the world. Lovely Sally!"
They sat side by side, hands not touching but hearts reaching toward each other, and the minutes slipped silently away as David drank in her moon-silvered young beauty, and she fed her love-hunger upon his Viking-like handsomeness and strength. They were silently agreeing to go when a sharp, metallic voice materialized suddenly out of the hush of the darkness.
"No monkey-business now, Steve! I'm warning you! If you double-cross me I'll cut your heart out! Fifty-fifty and--"
The rest was lost as the couple passed on, walking swiftly, two shadows that seemed like one. The voice was Nita's.
When Sally was awakened soon after dawn the next morning--Wednesday--by the shouts and songs of the "white hopes" unloading the carnival on the outskirts of the Capital City, the question which had insisted on worming its way through the heavenly joy of knowing that David loved her sprang instantly to the foreground of her mind; who was "Steve" with whom Nita had quarreled and bargained in the dark last night?
Sally and David had met or had had pointed out to them nearly every member of the show troupe, and there was no Steve among them. Of course Steve might be one of the roughneck white roustabouts. But a star performer, such as Nita considered herself, would hardly consort with such a man. The two classes--simply did not mix, except in rare instances. David of course was different. Everyone connected with the carnival knew that he was a university student, working in the kitchen with Buck only because he was hiding from the police.
Then the thought of David dismissed Nita and her threats and her Steve. She crawled out of her berth, scurried to the women's dressing room and hastily applied her show make-up. Pop Bybee had summoned her to the privilege car on her return from her momentous walk with David the night before to caution her not to appear in Capital City, even in the dress or cook tent, without her "Princess Lalla" complexion, which she was to apply with exceeding care so that the disguise might be impenetrable.